The city of New York has reached a deal with the helicopter tourism industry to cut the number of flights by 50% in order to reduce chopper noise, officials said on Sunday.
The industry agreed to scale back in the face of City Council legislation that would have banned tourist flights outright due to complaints about noise.
The compromise will reduce the number of flights to and from the downtown Manhattan heliport at Pier 6 beginning in June, and eventually eliminate 30,000 trips a year by the start of 2017.
In addition, the chopper companies will also completely stop selling tourism flights on Sundays.